


The one who was all to me

by middlemarch



Category: Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Childbirth, F/M, Husbands and Wives, Marriage, Romance, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 09:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Reader, I married him.





	The one who was all to me

She married William Boldwood. Not because he had a splendid house and acres of parkland, the windows cleverly placed to make the most of the vista and the sunsets, though he did. Not because he was a fine gentleman with a library full of books and a harp, his knotted cravat silk, his riding boots polished to a mirror’s sheen, though he was. Not because it was expected and not because she admired him, though it was and she did.

Bathsheba married William Boldwood because he sang with her at the feast, his baritone clear and true, though she heard in its tone that he would have kept singing even if his voice trembled. Because he knew every word and she could tell he knew what they meant and how he was asking her a question the whole time. Because he watched her as she sang with a longing she understood she could gratify—and found, suddenly as a match was struck, she wanted to. She knew she would not need to say very much and that he would pick up her hand in his when she spoke; she had not known he would bring her palm to his lips to kiss her there or that she would close her hand around to caress to keep it. She had not known how sweet his smile would be when he saw.

They had three years. She asked to plant more barley and fewer oats and he agreed. She asked to start a school for the village girls, a proper school, for the twelve most likely to begin with, and he agreed, nodding but not laughing. She did not give him a son and apologized for it; he refused to accept it, saying she was young and there was time, that she was all in all to him. When a poor girl was found on the brink of death with a newborn child, Bathsheba asked for the apothecary to be called and William gave her to coins to pay from his own pocket. He let her send the maid to Bathsheba’s dowry farm, let her name the baby Will Robin.

A fever came and few died. A grandmother, two nursing babies, a young boy already ill with consumption. And William Boldwood, who came home from riding and said,

“My head aches, I fear I’m unwell.”

He did not die in a day or a day and a night. Bathsheba nursed him herself, fed him broth from a silver spoon with his crest on the handle, lifted his head for him to sip from a cup of water. She gave him medicine the physician left after shaking his head with a mixture of sagacity and resignation, a particular sorrow that a gentleman of long acquaintance would shortly be departing. When nothing worked, she brewed her own teas from herbs she remembered were supposed to help, peppermint and chamomile, boneset and lemon balm, and he choked them down. She read to him and she sang every song she could every recall he’d smiled to hear and she prayed, not well but nothing to lose. She saw how he tried to rally and what it cost him; she saw when he decided it cost too much.

“Gabriel Oak,” he said, his voice halfway ruined with catarrh.

“What? Mr. Oak is fine, he’s managing the farm perfectly well, the flock is thriving. You needn’t worry about that,” Bathsheba said, dipping a soft cloth in water with a handful of lavender buds thrown in. The lavender did nothing for the fever; William still burned to the touch but the scent was pleasant, the reminder of happier days, of summer mornings when the fragrance came in through open windows like laughter.

“When I’m gone, marry him. He’ll help you,” William said.

“But he’s not a gentleman!” Bathsheba exclaimed.

“I’ve a sense that doesn’t make much difference, facing eternity,” he said, beginning to smile before he coughed. When he finished, she wiped his face with the cloth but he reached up to take her hand, to hold her still. “He’s a good man, steady, and he loves you. Has loved you all this time. I know.”

“How do you know?” she asked, not arguing that he would live. She saw in his dark eyes he noticed, that it was a relief and a disappointment. She saw that he loved her and meant to leave her.

“I have seen his expression in my own looking-glass these three years. And the year before, before you married me. I’ve seen how he turns away. And how he cannot help turning back.”

“I don’t need anyone,” Bathsheba said. William still held her hand in his and there was some strength left in him. Just not enough for this world.

“You mayn’t. You’re the most independent woman I’ve ever met. The most self-reliant soul. But it is still a good thing to be loved by someone worthy,” he said, squeezing her hand. “It is still good to have someone’s hand to hold when it grows dark.”

“What if I don’t love him?”

“You’re not a liar, my dear. Not to me and not to yourself. I don’t think you’d lie to Gabriel. He won’t ask you, you’ll have to say something,” William said. He hadn’t spoken this much, this long, in days. He looked something beyond tired.

“I’ll do what’s right, you must know that,” she said softly. He wanted to shut his eyes, to turn his face towards the light from the window. “Rest now, William. It’s all right.”

She married Gabriel Oak. Not because he made every arrangement she couldn’t face, the coffin and the stone, telling the people who worked for her she grieved in her own way, though he did. Not because William had made it his dying wish or request or blessing, though he did. Not because he asked, because he didn’t and not because she couldn’t think of what else to do, because she could.

She married Gabriel Oak because he waited when she asked him into her grand parlor and in his rough clothes, he was all she wanted to look at. Because his eyes were grey and filled with the most patient longing, though she did not know what to say and could not have sung a note, her voice half-ruined with weeping. Because when she lifted a hand, he took it and he came to her instead of drawing her to him, because he murmured _there now, sweetheart_ as he stroked her hair and only kissed her forehead though he held her close, so very close.

The baby came quickly, within the year; William had been right, she was young and there was time enough. Just enough for the midwife to attend to the delivery, instead of Gabriel, just enough time for him to brush the loose hair back from her flushed cheeks as the baby cried, indignant at the cool air, soothed only by her mother’s breast.

Gabriel said they might call the baby Wilhelmina, but Bathsheba shook her head.

“Her name is Ruth, because whither thou go, I shall go. He’d like that better, I think.”

“You’re all in all to me,” Gabriel said. She heard William saying it too, the memory like a charm. She closed her eyes and felt the swaddled baby in her arms, Gabriel’s hand on their daughter’s head. If someone else watched over them all, she couldn’t, didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> In light of the vast (and justified) love for Michael Sheen, I thought it would be interested to write an AU where Bathsheba marries both Boldwood and Oak and I had to figure out how she could do that and everyone would be generally okay about it. And I decided, in for a penny, in for a pound, I was going to start a school for girls and save Fanny Robin and make Boldwood into a guardian angel.
> 
> The title is from Hardy's "The Voice," a poem written about his love for his dead wife Emma.


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